Children’s Talk in the Classroom: A Conceptualisation. Jamia Journal of Education.

This paper is based on the data collected for the purpose of my doctoral work. Talk within the classroom is loaded with the various contexts and aspects of the lives of children. Through the talk, concepts are explained, tasks demonstrated, questions posed, answers given and ideas discussed. Life in the classroom is full of adventurous expeditions, for some it is a place to wonder in the land of imagination, vocalise their dreams and aspirations, some are active participants and some not so impressed with whatever is being said within the classroom. For many, the voices within the classroom are chaotic but the chaos within the classroom has lot to offer if one aims to understand children and their development. There is rarely any significant school activity that does not involve talk in some way but talk’s ubiquity in classroom is a rather weak argument for its importance. There is also limited research on children’s talk in classrooms in Indian context. This research is an attempt to elaborate on the idea of conceptualising children’s talk within the classroom to understand children and childhood. The paper offers to present the mapping of the life within the classroom with specific focus on what children talk and what is their perception about talking in the classroom.